Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in a very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intelle... more Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in a very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellectual curiosity led them to investigate the language and its structures. Secondly, the desire to better understand the holy text of the Qurʾān made Arabic grammar indispensable. The intellectual curiosity as well as the interconnection between grammar and the sciences of religion can be seen in the grammarians’ writings and theories in general and in particular in the hitherto unpublished - and virutally unknown - grammatical treatise Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ al-ʾadawāt (‘memorandum of the many meanings of the particles’). As its title implies, it is mainly dedicated to Arabic grammar, but also contains chapters devoted to other topics, such as logic and rhetoric. Its author, Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Maḥmūd, discusses the structures and meanings of Arabic particles, as well as topics of grammar and other fields. He shows independent analyses and hardly quotes earlier grammarians. Almost all of the examples in Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ al-ʾadawāt are taken from the Qurʾān.
Arik Sadan publishes this important treatise for the first time. He presents a scientific critical edition that is based on eleven manuscripts from Germany, Iran, Israel, Slovakia and Turkey.
In The Subjunctive Mood in Arabic Grammatical Thought Arik Sadan outlines the grammatical theorie... more In The Subjunctive Mood in Arabic Grammatical Thought Arik Sadan outlines the grammatical theories on the naṣb (subjunctive mood) in Classical Arabic. Examining over 160 treatises written by 85 grammarians, lexicographers and Qurʾān commentators, the author defines and characterizes the opinions of medieval Arab grammarians concerning this mood in the verbal system of Classical Arabic. Special attention is given to the prominent early grammarians Sībawayhi (d. ca. 180/796) and al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822), who represent the Schools of al-Baṣra and al-Kūfa respectively.
The analysis of the grammarians’ views enables the author to draw several important conclusions and hypotheses on the syntactic environments of the subjunctive mood, the dialectal differences relating to its employment and the historical changes and developments it underwent.
Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellect... more Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellectual curiosity led them to investigate the language and its structures. Secondly, the desire to better understand the holy text of the Qurʾān made Arabic grammar indispensable. The intellectual curiosity as well as the interconnection between grammar and the study of religion can be seen in the grammarians’ writings and theories in general and in this book in particular. The book consists of a critical edition and the analysis of an early treatise in the field of Arabic grammar, based on two manuscripts located in England and Egypt. The work’s title is Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya which literally means ‘the balance, or scales, of Arabic.’ It is a pedagogical work dedicated to Arabic grammar and written by the famous Arabic grammarian Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (died 577/1181) who is probably best known for his al-ʾInṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf bayn al-naḥwiyyīn al-baṣriyyīn wa-l-kūfiyyīn, a collection of Streitfragen (controversial issues) attributed to the Baṣran and Kūfan grammarians. Among his rather few other extant treatises is the celebrated ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, mostly dedicated to theoretical reasoning behind linguistic facts. In addition to the critical edition of Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya, the book also contains a detailed comparison between this work and the above-mentioned ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, both written by the same author.
This volume consists of an edition of the Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Job by... more This volume consists of an edition of the Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Job by one of the preeminent litterateurs of the Karaite “Golden Age” (10th–11th centuries), Yefet ben ʿEli ha-Levi. Yefet’s complete translation and commentary on Job, published for the first time, provides fascinating insight into the history and development of exegetical thought on this book, both among the Karaites as well as the Rabbanites. In preparing this edition, all extant twenty-five manuscripts have been consulted, most of them from the Firkovitch Collection. Their length varies from 1 to 340 folios and in total they contain ca. 2,850 folios.
The subjunctive mood presents difficulties for the grammarians of the languages in which it is mo... more The subjunctive mood presents difficulties for the grammarians of the languages in which it is morphologically distinguished from the other moods. These difficulties arise from dubious cases, in which one speaker would use the indicative mood, whereas another would choose the subjunctive mood. Generally speaking, it seems impossible to formulate rules that would apply to all the cases and all the examples. These dubious cases and the reactions of the grammarians towards them are indeed interesting. This article offers a comparison between some employments of the subjunctive mood in subordinated clauses in two languages that are certainly different : Classical Arabic and French. Generally speaking, the tendency presented by the grammarians of these two languages is the same : the indicative mood is normally used in the subordinated clauses depending on a verb conveying certainty, whereas the subjunctive mood appears when the verb of the main clause expresses uncertainty. There is also a third possibility, of the verbs of thought, after which the two moods are possible, according to what the speaker wishes to exactly express by these verbs (certainty or, on the contrary, uncertainty). Besides the similarity in this general tendency, described by the grammarians of the two languages, it is possible to find in Classical Arabic, as well as in French, some examples that go "against" this tendency. In other words, examples in which the mood of the verb is indicative, instead of the expected subjunctive, and vice versa. The reactions of the grammarians of the two languages towards these examples are also similar.
Marogy, Amal E. and Kees Versteegh (ed.). The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics 2: Kitāb Sībawayhi: Transmission & Interpretation. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 83. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2015. pp. 171-183, 2015
Sībawayhi and the early grammarians have three sources for their grammatical descriptions and the... more Sībawayhi and the early grammarians have three sources for their grammatical descriptions and theories. First and foremost, the spoken language of the Bedouins (ʿarabun yūṯaqu bi-ʿarabiyyatihim ‘Bedouins whose Arabic language can be trusted’), and then the Qurʾān and ancient Arabic poetry. On the other hand, the language of the ḥadiṯ, one of the main branches of the Islamic religious sciences, is hardly treated in the early grammatical tradition. Sībawayhi’s few citations from the ḥadiṯ are given as expressions occurring in Bedouin speech. This is usually explained by the fact that for the early grammarians, even authentic traditions were not transmitted in their original literal form, and they therefore might not reflect the original language. Later grammarians, however, start using examples from the ḥadiṯ in order to confirm grammatical rules. Ibn Mālik (died 672/1274) even composed a whole book dedicated to the language of the ḥadiṯ: this is the book Šawāhid al-tawḍīḥ wal-taṣḥīḥ li-muškilāt al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, which is a grammatical discussion of difficult passages from al-Buxārī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ. Ibn Mālik was known for his extensive use of ḥadiṯs as a grammatical tool, but a thorough examination shows that earlier grammarians, as early as from the 6th century, made usage of ḥadiṯs in order to deduce grammatical rules. The paper shows the gradual development of grammarians’ usage of ḥadiṯs as a grammatical tool from the time of Sībawayhi onwards and suggests possible explanations for this development.
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 43. pp. 209–218, 2016
The paper focuses on a research project which aims at confronting and comparing linguistic theori... more The paper focuses on a research project which aims at confronting and comparing linguistic theories of ancient Arab grammarians with the actual linguistic usage. Having defined and characterized the Arab grammarians’ theories on the naṣb (subjunctive) mood, I now examine the usage of this mood in a corpus of texts written in Classical Arabic. By comparing the linguistic mechanisms in the texts with the grammatical theories, I seek to explore and determine the relationship between theory and usage. The corpus I have chosen for this purpose is the work Kitāb al-aġānī (literally: the book of songs), an anthology composed in the 10th century by Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī (d. 967). This immense work (around ten thousand pages of text) describes different aspects of the lives of Arabs from the pre-Islamic period until the end of the 9th century. It comprises several literary genres, such as prose, dialogue and poetry, and thus contains a great variety of linguistic data.
The research project might shed light on several important, still unanswered questions:
a. Did the Arab grammarians who developed linguistic theories indeed reflect the actual usage of the language in a descriptive manner, or did they try to dictate a “correct usage” of the language in a more prescriptive manner?
b. What phenomena encountered in the texts, if any, are neither mentioned nor treated in the grammarians’ theories? On the other hand, what, if any, are the phenomena described by the grammarians in their theories, for which there is no evidence in actual usage?
Miriam L. Hjälm (ed.), Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition. The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims., 2017
This paper discusses new findings on the Karaite Yefet ben ʿEli’s translation
of Job, focusing o... more This paper discusses new findings on the Karaite Yefet ben ʿEli’s translation
of Job, focusing on translation techniques and showing that Yefet resorted
to Islamic terminology whenever this usage fit his needs, had various strategies
for proper names and that he normally used the word allāh for “God” but also
other epithets and names. Such differences – to a certain degree – correspond
with the script used for a specific manuscript (Hebrew or Arabic).
The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics III: The Development of Tradition: Continuity and Change, ed. Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh, Leiden: Brill, pp. 178-189, 2018
This paper details the demonstratives’ functions and semantic characteristics, according to Sībaw... more This paper details the demonstratives’ functions and semantic characteristics, according to Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Although Sībawayhi does not devote a separate chapter to demonstratives, a scrutiny of their occurrences in his Kitāb shows that for Sībawayhi demonstratives pertain to the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama 'the dubious, or vague, nouns'; they serve to indicate, or point to, nearby or far objects or persons; they have diminutive and dual forms; and they can be used as names of persons. Among the demonstratives in Sībawayhi's example sentences there are quite a few that have the meaning of a verb in the imperative, 'behold!' or 'see!', a meaning that Sībawayhi explicitly mentions.
In: Schulthess, Sara et al. (ed.). Arabica sunt, non leguntur... Studies on the Arabic Versions of the Bible in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Tradition. Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 70, 2018, 1-2. pp. 7-33.
This paper compares three 9th-10th century translations of the frame story of the book of Job, na... more This paper compares three 9th-10th century translations of the frame story of the book of Job, namely the Rabbinical Judaeo-Arabic translation of Saadia Gaon, the Karaite Judaeo-Arabic translation of Yefet b. Ali and a Christian translation by Tūmā al-Fusṭāṭī. Whereas Saadia’s translation is fully available in a critical edition, the other two translations are available only in manuscripts. First the three translations of the verses of the frame story are given. Then a comparison of various syntactic and lexical aspects of these translations is made. Finally, based on this comparison, some conclusions on the tendencies of each translation and the relationships with the source and target languages are given.
A translation of the second part of Yefet b. ‘Eli’s introduction to his commentary on the book of... more A translation of the second part of Yefet b. ‘Eli’s introduction to his commentary on the book of Job, followed by a short discussion. The translation is my own work, from my book on Yefet’s commentary.
In: Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Kees Versteegh (eds.). The Foundations of Arab Linguistics 4: The Evolution of Theory: 8th-14th Century AD. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 97. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2019. pp. 225-232.
In: Sheyhatovitch, Beata and Almog Kasher (eds.) From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 101. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2020. pp. 107-122., 2020
This paper discusses two less familiar contexts in which ʾan appears, according to Arabic grammar... more This paper discusses two less familiar contexts in which ʾan appears, according to Arabic grammarians. One is ʾan in the sense of ʾay ‘that is’, which elucidates and introduces direct speech, just as a colon does in modern writing. In most examples the direct speech begins with a verb in the imperative, but there are other possibilities as well. Some grammarians name it ʾan al-mufassira ‘the elucidating ʾan’. It is generally agreed that it follows a verb denoting a meaning similar to that of qāla ‘say’, but not that specific verb itself. The other case is ʾan which has no specific meaning or syntactic influence in the sentence. Most grammarians name it ʾan al-zāʾida or ʾan al-zāʾida li-l-taʾkīd ‘ʾan added for emphasis’. Sībawayhi and most grammarians who follow him mention two possible contexts in which it can appear: following lammā and before law. In the latter it usually follows an oath, either without a verb, e.g. wa-llāhi ‘by God’, or with one, e.g. ʾuqsimu ‘I swear’. This second kind of ʾan is much less used than the former kind, and only few examples are given for it.
In: Lentin, Jérôme and Jacques Grand’Henry (eds.) Middle and Mixed Arabic over Time and across Written and Oral Genres. From Legal Documents to Television and Internet through Literatur. Proceedings of the IVth AIMA International Conference 2013). Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2021. pp. 241-251., 2022
Middle and Mixed Arabic (= MMA) seem to influence Modern Standard Arabic (= MSA) at a number of l... more Middle and Mixed Arabic (= MMA) seem to influence Modern Standard Arabic (= MSA) at a number of levels, including semantics and syntax. This influence may account for several usages in MSA which can be traced back to MMA. In this paper I present two common expressions in MSA which can be connected to parallel usages of MMA. Each usage is presented from two perspectives: Arabic lexicography and current usage. The two expressions are the following:
1. Hākaḏā šayˀ in the sense of ‘such a thing / a thing like this’;
2. Kawnahu in the sense of li-ˀannahu.
It seems that these usages, which are current in MSA, have evolved due to the presence of their counterparts in Spoken Arabic and MMA. The paper will demonstrate their roots and contexts.
Bible Translations – Linguistic and Cultural Issues. Proceedings of the Erlangen Workshop on October 5 and 6, 2018. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 2021
The current paper aims at presenting and comparing Yefet Ben Ali’s Translation and Commentary on ... more The current paper aims at presenting and comparing Yefet Ben Ali’s Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job in the version transmitted in the twenty-four manuscripts written in Hebrew characters with the only manuscript written in Arabic characters, with the aim of showing linguistic differences between the two. As will be shown below, the choice of writing the translation and commentary in Hebrew or in Arabic letters affected certain linguistic characteristics of the text.
Israel Oriental Studies 21: “Carrying a Torch to Distant Mountains”, ed. Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan, Letizia Cerqueglini and Beata Sheyhatovitch, 2021
The adverbial accusative of cause and purpose (al-mafʿūl lahu) is a verbal noun in the accusative... more The adverbial accusative of cause and purpose (al-mafʿūl lahu) is a verbal noun in the accusative case that describes for which reason, or for which purpose, the action takes place, as xawfan in xarajtu xawfan minka ‘I exited because of fear from you’ and taʾdīban in ḍarabtuhu taʾdīban lahu ‘I hit him in order to educate him’. The Arab grammarians present several constraints for having an accusative noun in this structure, most of which are agreed upon, for example the necessity of having a maṣdar (verbal noun) and not just any noun. Another constraint, which only several late grammarians raise, concerns the semantic nature of the verbal nouns that function as al-mafʿūl lahu. These grammarians claim that only “a mental or intellectual nomen verbi - maṣdar qalbiyy” (see William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol 2, 122A) can be found in the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, but in fact, there are examples in which this is not the case. This paper presents the grammarians’ syntactic and semantic constraints for the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, focuses on the above-mentioned semantic constraint and examines if this constraint is indeed justified and needed, according to their examples.
Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in a very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intelle... more Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in a very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellectual curiosity led them to investigate the language and its structures. Secondly, the desire to better understand the holy text of the Qurʾān made Arabic grammar indispensable. The intellectual curiosity as well as the interconnection between grammar and the sciences of religion can be seen in the grammarians’ writings and theories in general and in particular in the hitherto unpublished - and virutally unknown - grammatical treatise Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ al-ʾadawāt (‘memorandum of the many meanings of the particles’). As its title implies, it is mainly dedicated to Arabic grammar, but also contains chapters devoted to other topics, such as logic and rhetoric. Its author, Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Maḥmūd, discusses the structures and meanings of Arabic particles, as well as topics of grammar and other fields. He shows independent analyses and hardly quotes earlier grammarians. Almost all of the examples in Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ al-ʾadawāt are taken from the Qurʾān.
Arik Sadan publishes this important treatise for the first time. He presents a scientific critical edition that is based on eleven manuscripts from Germany, Iran, Israel, Slovakia and Turkey.
In The Subjunctive Mood in Arabic Grammatical Thought Arik Sadan outlines the grammatical theorie... more In The Subjunctive Mood in Arabic Grammatical Thought Arik Sadan outlines the grammatical theories on the naṣb (subjunctive mood) in Classical Arabic. Examining over 160 treatises written by 85 grammarians, lexicographers and Qurʾān commentators, the author defines and characterizes the opinions of medieval Arab grammarians concerning this mood in the verbal system of Classical Arabic. Special attention is given to the prominent early grammarians Sībawayhi (d. ca. 180/796) and al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822), who represent the Schools of al-Baṣra and al-Kūfa respectively.
The analysis of the grammarians’ views enables the author to draw several important conclusions and hypotheses on the syntactic environments of the subjunctive mood, the dialectal differences relating to its employment and the historical changes and developments it underwent.
Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellect... more Medieval Arab scholars held grammar in very high esteem due to two main reasons. First, intellectual curiosity led them to investigate the language and its structures. Secondly, the desire to better understand the holy text of the Qurʾān made Arabic grammar indispensable. The intellectual curiosity as well as the interconnection between grammar and the study of religion can be seen in the grammarians’ writings and theories in general and in this book in particular. The book consists of a critical edition and the analysis of an early treatise in the field of Arabic grammar, based on two manuscripts located in England and Egypt. The work’s title is Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya which literally means ‘the balance, or scales, of Arabic.’ It is a pedagogical work dedicated to Arabic grammar and written by the famous Arabic grammarian Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (died 577/1181) who is probably best known for his al-ʾInṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf bayn al-naḥwiyyīn al-baṣriyyīn wa-l-kūfiyyīn, a collection of Streitfragen (controversial issues) attributed to the Baṣran and Kūfan grammarians. Among his rather few other extant treatises is the celebrated ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, mostly dedicated to theoretical reasoning behind linguistic facts. In addition to the critical edition of Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya, the book also contains a detailed comparison between this work and the above-mentioned ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, both written by the same author.
This volume consists of an edition of the Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Job by... more This volume consists of an edition of the Arabic translation and commentary on the book of Job by one of the preeminent litterateurs of the Karaite “Golden Age” (10th–11th centuries), Yefet ben ʿEli ha-Levi. Yefet’s complete translation and commentary on Job, published for the first time, provides fascinating insight into the history and development of exegetical thought on this book, both among the Karaites as well as the Rabbanites. In preparing this edition, all extant twenty-five manuscripts have been consulted, most of them from the Firkovitch Collection. Their length varies from 1 to 340 folios and in total they contain ca. 2,850 folios.
The subjunctive mood presents difficulties for the grammarians of the languages in which it is mo... more The subjunctive mood presents difficulties for the grammarians of the languages in which it is morphologically distinguished from the other moods. These difficulties arise from dubious cases, in which one speaker would use the indicative mood, whereas another would choose the subjunctive mood. Generally speaking, it seems impossible to formulate rules that would apply to all the cases and all the examples. These dubious cases and the reactions of the grammarians towards them are indeed interesting. This article offers a comparison between some employments of the subjunctive mood in subordinated clauses in two languages that are certainly different : Classical Arabic and French. Generally speaking, the tendency presented by the grammarians of these two languages is the same : the indicative mood is normally used in the subordinated clauses depending on a verb conveying certainty, whereas the subjunctive mood appears when the verb of the main clause expresses uncertainty. There is also a third possibility, of the verbs of thought, after which the two moods are possible, according to what the speaker wishes to exactly express by these verbs (certainty or, on the contrary, uncertainty). Besides the similarity in this general tendency, described by the grammarians of the two languages, it is possible to find in Classical Arabic, as well as in French, some examples that go "against" this tendency. In other words, examples in which the mood of the verb is indicative, instead of the expected subjunctive, and vice versa. The reactions of the grammarians of the two languages towards these examples are also similar.
Marogy, Amal E. and Kees Versteegh (ed.). The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics 2: Kitāb Sībawayhi: Transmission & Interpretation. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 83. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2015. pp. 171-183, 2015
Sībawayhi and the early grammarians have three sources for their grammatical descriptions and the... more Sībawayhi and the early grammarians have three sources for their grammatical descriptions and theories. First and foremost, the spoken language of the Bedouins (ʿarabun yūṯaqu bi-ʿarabiyyatihim ‘Bedouins whose Arabic language can be trusted’), and then the Qurʾān and ancient Arabic poetry. On the other hand, the language of the ḥadiṯ, one of the main branches of the Islamic religious sciences, is hardly treated in the early grammatical tradition. Sībawayhi’s few citations from the ḥadiṯ are given as expressions occurring in Bedouin speech. This is usually explained by the fact that for the early grammarians, even authentic traditions were not transmitted in their original literal form, and they therefore might not reflect the original language. Later grammarians, however, start using examples from the ḥadiṯ in order to confirm grammatical rules. Ibn Mālik (died 672/1274) even composed a whole book dedicated to the language of the ḥadiṯ: this is the book Šawāhid al-tawḍīḥ wal-taṣḥīḥ li-muškilāt al-jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, which is a grammatical discussion of difficult passages from al-Buxārī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ. Ibn Mālik was known for his extensive use of ḥadiṯs as a grammatical tool, but a thorough examination shows that earlier grammarians, as early as from the 6th century, made usage of ḥadiṯs in order to deduce grammatical rules. The paper shows the gradual development of grammarians’ usage of ḥadiṯs as a grammatical tool from the time of Sībawayhi onwards and suggests possible explanations for this development.
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 43. pp. 209–218, 2016
The paper focuses on a research project which aims at confronting and comparing linguistic theori... more The paper focuses on a research project which aims at confronting and comparing linguistic theories of ancient Arab grammarians with the actual linguistic usage. Having defined and characterized the Arab grammarians’ theories on the naṣb (subjunctive) mood, I now examine the usage of this mood in a corpus of texts written in Classical Arabic. By comparing the linguistic mechanisms in the texts with the grammatical theories, I seek to explore and determine the relationship between theory and usage. The corpus I have chosen for this purpose is the work Kitāb al-aġānī (literally: the book of songs), an anthology composed in the 10th century by Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī (d. 967). This immense work (around ten thousand pages of text) describes different aspects of the lives of Arabs from the pre-Islamic period until the end of the 9th century. It comprises several literary genres, such as prose, dialogue and poetry, and thus contains a great variety of linguistic data.
The research project might shed light on several important, still unanswered questions:
a. Did the Arab grammarians who developed linguistic theories indeed reflect the actual usage of the language in a descriptive manner, or did they try to dictate a “correct usage” of the language in a more prescriptive manner?
b. What phenomena encountered in the texts, if any, are neither mentioned nor treated in the grammarians’ theories? On the other hand, what, if any, are the phenomena described by the grammarians in their theories, for which there is no evidence in actual usage?
Miriam L. Hjälm (ed.), Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition. The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims., 2017
This paper discusses new findings on the Karaite Yefet ben ʿEli’s translation
of Job, focusing o... more This paper discusses new findings on the Karaite Yefet ben ʿEli’s translation
of Job, focusing on translation techniques and showing that Yefet resorted
to Islamic terminology whenever this usage fit his needs, had various strategies
for proper names and that he normally used the word allāh for “God” but also
other epithets and names. Such differences – to a certain degree – correspond
with the script used for a specific manuscript (Hebrew or Arabic).
The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics III: The Development of Tradition: Continuity and Change, ed. Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh, Leiden: Brill, pp. 178-189, 2018
This paper details the demonstratives’ functions and semantic characteristics, according to Sībaw... more This paper details the demonstratives’ functions and semantic characteristics, according to Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Although Sībawayhi does not devote a separate chapter to demonstratives, a scrutiny of their occurrences in his Kitāb shows that for Sībawayhi demonstratives pertain to the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama 'the dubious, or vague, nouns'; they serve to indicate, or point to, nearby or far objects or persons; they have diminutive and dual forms; and they can be used as names of persons. Among the demonstratives in Sībawayhi's example sentences there are quite a few that have the meaning of a verb in the imperative, 'behold!' or 'see!', a meaning that Sībawayhi explicitly mentions.
In: Schulthess, Sara et al. (ed.). Arabica sunt, non leguntur... Studies on the Arabic Versions of the Bible in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Tradition. Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 70, 2018, 1-2. pp. 7-33.
This paper compares three 9th-10th century translations of the frame story of the book of Job, na... more This paper compares three 9th-10th century translations of the frame story of the book of Job, namely the Rabbinical Judaeo-Arabic translation of Saadia Gaon, the Karaite Judaeo-Arabic translation of Yefet b. Ali and a Christian translation by Tūmā al-Fusṭāṭī. Whereas Saadia’s translation is fully available in a critical edition, the other two translations are available only in manuscripts. First the three translations of the verses of the frame story are given. Then a comparison of various syntactic and lexical aspects of these translations is made. Finally, based on this comparison, some conclusions on the tendencies of each translation and the relationships with the source and target languages are given.
A translation of the second part of Yefet b. ‘Eli’s introduction to his commentary on the book of... more A translation of the second part of Yefet b. ‘Eli’s introduction to his commentary on the book of Job, followed by a short discussion. The translation is my own work, from my book on Yefet’s commentary.
In: Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Kees Versteegh (eds.). The Foundations of Arab Linguistics 4: The Evolution of Theory: 8th-14th Century AD. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 97. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2019. pp. 225-232.
In: Sheyhatovitch, Beata and Almog Kasher (eds.) From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 101. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2020. pp. 107-122., 2020
This paper discusses two less familiar contexts in which ʾan appears, according to Arabic grammar... more This paper discusses two less familiar contexts in which ʾan appears, according to Arabic grammarians. One is ʾan in the sense of ʾay ‘that is’, which elucidates and introduces direct speech, just as a colon does in modern writing. In most examples the direct speech begins with a verb in the imperative, but there are other possibilities as well. Some grammarians name it ʾan al-mufassira ‘the elucidating ʾan’. It is generally agreed that it follows a verb denoting a meaning similar to that of qāla ‘say’, but not that specific verb itself. The other case is ʾan which has no specific meaning or syntactic influence in the sentence. Most grammarians name it ʾan al-zāʾida or ʾan al-zāʾida li-l-taʾkīd ‘ʾan added for emphasis’. Sībawayhi and most grammarians who follow him mention two possible contexts in which it can appear: following lammā and before law. In the latter it usually follows an oath, either without a verb, e.g. wa-llāhi ‘by God’, or with one, e.g. ʾuqsimu ‘I swear’. This second kind of ʾan is much less used than the former kind, and only few examples are given for it.
In: Lentin, Jérôme and Jacques Grand’Henry (eds.) Middle and Mixed Arabic over Time and across Written and Oral Genres. From Legal Documents to Television and Internet through Literatur. Proceedings of the IVth AIMA International Conference 2013). Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2021. pp. 241-251., 2022
Middle and Mixed Arabic (= MMA) seem to influence Modern Standard Arabic (= MSA) at a number of l... more Middle and Mixed Arabic (= MMA) seem to influence Modern Standard Arabic (= MSA) at a number of levels, including semantics and syntax. This influence may account for several usages in MSA which can be traced back to MMA. In this paper I present two common expressions in MSA which can be connected to parallel usages of MMA. Each usage is presented from two perspectives: Arabic lexicography and current usage. The two expressions are the following:
1. Hākaḏā šayˀ in the sense of ‘such a thing / a thing like this’;
2. Kawnahu in the sense of li-ˀannahu.
It seems that these usages, which are current in MSA, have evolved due to the presence of their counterparts in Spoken Arabic and MMA. The paper will demonstrate their roots and contexts.
Bible Translations – Linguistic and Cultural Issues. Proceedings of the Erlangen Workshop on October 5 and 6, 2018. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 2021
The current paper aims at presenting and comparing Yefet Ben Ali’s Translation and Commentary on ... more The current paper aims at presenting and comparing Yefet Ben Ali’s Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job in the version transmitted in the twenty-four manuscripts written in Hebrew characters with the only manuscript written in Arabic characters, with the aim of showing linguistic differences between the two. As will be shown below, the choice of writing the translation and commentary in Hebrew or in Arabic letters affected certain linguistic characteristics of the text.
Israel Oriental Studies 21: “Carrying a Torch to Distant Mountains”, ed. Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan, Letizia Cerqueglini and Beata Sheyhatovitch, 2021
The adverbial accusative of cause and purpose (al-mafʿūl lahu) is a verbal noun in the accusative... more The adverbial accusative of cause and purpose (al-mafʿūl lahu) is a verbal noun in the accusative case that describes for which reason, or for which purpose, the action takes place, as xawfan in xarajtu xawfan minka ‘I exited because of fear from you’ and taʾdīban in ḍarabtuhu taʾdīban lahu ‘I hit him in order to educate him’. The Arab grammarians present several constraints for having an accusative noun in this structure, most of which are agreed upon, for example the necessity of having a maṣdar (verbal noun) and not just any noun. Another constraint, which only several late grammarians raise, concerns the semantic nature of the verbal nouns that function as al-mafʿūl lahu. These grammarians claim that only “a mental or intellectual nomen verbi - maṣdar qalbiyy” (see William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol 2, 122A) can be found in the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, but in fact, there are examples in which this is not the case. This paper presents the grammarians’ syntactic and semantic constraints for the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, focuses on the above-mentioned semantic constraint and examines if this constraint is indeed justified and needed, according to their examples.
Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition offers recent findings on the reception, translation ... more Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition offers recent findings on the reception, translation and use of the Bible in Arabic among Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims from the early Islamic era to the present day. In this volume, edited by Miriam L. Hjälm, scholars from different fields have joined forces to illuminate various aspects of the Bible in Arabic: it depicts the characteristics of this abundant and diverse textual heritage, describes how the biblical message was made relevant for communities in the Near East and makes hitherto unpublished Arabic texts available. It also shows how various communities interacted in their choice of shared terminology and topics, and how Arabic Bible translations moved from one religious community to another.
Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition offers recent findings on the reception, translation ... more Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition offers recent findings on the reception, translation and use of the Bible in Arabic among Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims from the early Islamic era to the present day. In this volume, edited by Miriam L. Hjälm, scholars from different fields have joined forces to illuminate various aspects of the Bible in Arabic: it depicts the characteristics of this abundant and diverse textual heritage, describes how the biblical message was made relevant for communities in the Near East and makes hitherto unpublished Arabic texts available. It also shows how various communities interacted in their choice of shared terminology and topics, and how Arabic Bible translations moved from one religious community to another.
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Arik Sadan publishes this important treatise for the first time. He presents a scientific critical edition that is based on eleven manuscripts from Germany, Iran, Israel, Slovakia and Turkey.
The analysis of the grammarians’ views enables the author to draw several important conclusions and hypotheses on the syntactic environments of the subjunctive mood, the dialectal differences relating to its employment and the historical changes and developments it underwent.
The book consists of a critical edition and the analysis of an early treatise in the field of Arabic grammar, based on two manuscripts located in England and Egypt. The work’s title is Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya which literally means ‘the balance, or scales, of Arabic.’ It is a pedagogical work dedicated to Arabic grammar and written by the famous Arabic grammarian Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (died 577/1181) who is probably best known for his al-ʾInṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf bayn al-naḥwiyyīn al-baṣriyyīn wa-l-kūfiyyīn, a collection of Streitfragen (controversial issues) attributed to the Baṣran and Kūfan grammarians. Among his rather few other extant treatises is the celebrated ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, mostly dedicated to theoretical reasoning behind linguistic facts. In addition to the critical edition of Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya, the book also contains a detailed comparison between this work and the above-mentioned ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, both written by the same author.
The research project might shed light on several important, still unanswered questions:
a. Did the Arab grammarians who developed linguistic theories indeed reflect the actual usage of the language in a descriptive manner, or did they try to dictate a “correct usage” of the language in a more prescriptive manner?
b. What phenomena encountered in the texts, if any, are neither mentioned nor treated in the grammarians’ theories? On the other hand, what, if any, are the phenomena described by the grammarians in their theories, for which there is no evidence in actual usage?
of Job, focusing on translation techniques and showing that Yefet resorted
to Islamic terminology whenever this usage fit his needs, had various strategies
for proper names and that he normally used the word allāh for “God” but also
other epithets and names. Such differences – to a certain degree – correspond
with the script used for a specific manuscript (Hebrew or Arabic).
1. Hākaḏā šayˀ in the sense of ‘such a thing / a thing like this’;
2. Kawnahu in the sense of li-ˀannahu.
It seems that these usages, which are current in MSA, have evolved due to the presence of their counterparts in Spoken Arabic and MMA. The paper will demonstrate their roots and contexts.
The Arab grammarians present several constraints for having an accusative noun in this structure, most of which are agreed upon, for example the necessity of having a maṣdar (verbal noun) and not just any noun. Another constraint, which only several late grammarians raise, concerns the semantic nature of the verbal nouns that function as al-mafʿūl lahu. These grammarians claim that only “a mental or intellectual nomen verbi - maṣdar qalbiyy” (see William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol 2, 122A) can be found in the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, but in fact, there are examples in which this is not the case.
This paper presents the grammarians’ syntactic and semantic constraints for the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, focuses on the above-mentioned semantic constraint and examines if this constraint is indeed justified and needed, according to their examples.
Arik Sadan publishes this important treatise for the first time. He presents a scientific critical edition that is based on eleven manuscripts from Germany, Iran, Israel, Slovakia and Turkey.
The analysis of the grammarians’ views enables the author to draw several important conclusions and hypotheses on the syntactic environments of the subjunctive mood, the dialectal differences relating to its employment and the historical changes and developments it underwent.
The book consists of a critical edition and the analysis of an early treatise in the field of Arabic grammar, based on two manuscripts located in England and Egypt. The work’s title is Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya which literally means ‘the balance, or scales, of Arabic.’ It is a pedagogical work dedicated to Arabic grammar and written by the famous Arabic grammarian Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (died 577/1181) who is probably best known for his al-ʾInṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf bayn al-naḥwiyyīn al-baṣriyyīn wa-l-kūfiyyīn, a collection of Streitfragen (controversial issues) attributed to the Baṣran and Kūfan grammarians. Among his rather few other extant treatises is the celebrated ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, mostly dedicated to theoretical reasoning behind linguistic facts. In addition to the critical edition of Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya, the book also contains a detailed comparison between this work and the above-mentioned ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya, both written by the same author.
The research project might shed light on several important, still unanswered questions:
a. Did the Arab grammarians who developed linguistic theories indeed reflect the actual usage of the language in a descriptive manner, or did they try to dictate a “correct usage” of the language in a more prescriptive manner?
b. What phenomena encountered in the texts, if any, are neither mentioned nor treated in the grammarians’ theories? On the other hand, what, if any, are the phenomena described by the grammarians in their theories, for which there is no evidence in actual usage?
of Job, focusing on translation techniques and showing that Yefet resorted
to Islamic terminology whenever this usage fit his needs, had various strategies
for proper names and that he normally used the word allāh for “God” but also
other epithets and names. Such differences – to a certain degree – correspond
with the script used for a specific manuscript (Hebrew or Arabic).
1. Hākaḏā šayˀ in the sense of ‘such a thing / a thing like this’;
2. Kawnahu in the sense of li-ˀannahu.
It seems that these usages, which are current in MSA, have evolved due to the presence of their counterparts in Spoken Arabic and MMA. The paper will demonstrate their roots and contexts.
The Arab grammarians present several constraints for having an accusative noun in this structure, most of which are agreed upon, for example the necessity of having a maṣdar (verbal noun) and not just any noun. Another constraint, which only several late grammarians raise, concerns the semantic nature of the verbal nouns that function as al-mafʿūl lahu. These grammarians claim that only “a mental or intellectual nomen verbi - maṣdar qalbiyy” (see William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol 2, 122A) can be found in the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, but in fact, there are examples in which this is not the case.
This paper presents the grammarians’ syntactic and semantic constraints for the structure of al-mafʿūl lahu, focuses on the above-mentioned semantic constraint and examines if this constraint is indeed justified and needed, according to their examples.